


Coloring

by Sylv



Category: Teen Titans
Genre: Gen, Kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-29
Updated: 2012-11-29
Packaged: 2017-11-19 19:42:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/576940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylv/pseuds/Sylv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starfire was on another one of her rampages.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coloring

Starfire was on another one of her rampages. When her face got set like that, you knew that someone would be run over by her today, and everybody was steering well away. Her green eyes were flint hard and her smile nearly consumed her face. The girl was determined to corner one of the other four Titans and badger them (kindly, of course) into agreeing with what it was she was on about this time. When she wandered into a room, the others would find some excuse to immediately vacate the premises. But one of them would be caught eventually, and they knew that. They just didn't want it to be them.

Beast Boy had morphed into a green gecko and scrambled up the wall into a corner. Starfire had attempted to pin him under her hand, but he kept scampering away across the ceiling and walls, using more athletic ability than she had seen him attempt to use during most of their battles with villains. Robin had bolted the door to his workroom shut and shouted at her that he remembered he had mounds of paperwork to do, when he had told his team just yesterday that he wouldn't do any work today and attempt to be somewhat social. Raven had tried her usual glaring and ignoring techniques, but when Starfire hadn't been fazed in the least she simply transported herself away. The alien hadn't been able to find her anywhere she looked, making her think that she had actually gone to another dimension this time.

Cyborg exited the garage, wiping his hands off with a rag, glancing around furtively. Sure enough, Starfire's brilliant red hair could be seen turning the corner. He immediately spun around on his heel and hightailed it back to the door of the garage, but he couldn't get there before—

"Cyborg!" she called cheerfully, speeding up so that she could block his way back down the hallway. It was amazing how someone so tiny could suddenly take up so much space. She grinned up at him, and the machine man knew what was coming next. He silently cursed his luck, and for the first time ever wished he had Raven's powers so that he could simply stick Starfire to a wall and proceed on by her without a thought.

"Yes, Starfire?" he asked as casually as he could.

"Will you be joining me in my outing to the garten of kinder? I promised the teacher that we would play with the children today! They said that we would be coloring on white paper, and I am quite excited to do so with them, as I have always liked to use the pencils of color, and the children are very nice." Her huge eyes blinked up at him and he groaned inwardly. He knew he would lose this battle before he even started to try and fight back.

"I dunno, Star, I'm not so good with coloring. And I really have to work on the T-car, its engine blew out the other day, and I've gotta fix it—"

Her tinkling laugh stopped his excuses short. "Nonsense!" she told him firmly, getting that hard look back on her face. "I am sure you will be fine with the coloring, and I saw you coming from the T-car, which means that you must have already fixed it!" Starfire grabbed hold of his hand and began pulling him in the other direction, even though Cyborg dug his feet into the floor. All that did was leave awful streak marks and force Cyborg to almost lose his balance.

"Star! Really, I can't, I'm not the guy you should be asking, I'm sure- I'm sure…" but he couldn't think of what he was sure of. All he knew was that he really, really didn't want to go color with these kids, and the fact that he had to was starting to fuzz his thinking ability. He couldn't, he couldn't, and it spun through his head as a mantra, the one thing that he grasped onto. He couldn't, he couldn't, he couldn't, he couldn't…

The hero barely noticed the wind on his face as Starfire carried him through the air, or the buildings that zoomed by below, or the fact that they had even left the tower at all. He felt like his heart was in his throat as it pounded furiously. And he wanted to berate himself. These were little kids who just wanted the company of some local heroes to do something that they loved to do. But he couldn't get over the fear. The laughing voices, the cruelest torture that he had ever known. The name-calling, the lost friends, the feeling of being completely and utterly alone. All accentuated by the children, those children who felt the need to degrade him.

And then they were there. Starfire gently let him down, eyes sparkling with gratitude that he had allowed her to drag him there with her. She took his hand gently and led him inside. The two of them navigated the tiny halls carefully for a minute or two. Curious heads poked out of classrooms and teachers called them back to what they were doing. The older kids didn't get up out of their seats but huge grins spread on their faces when they saw two of their heroes walking through the hallways. Eventually they reached the correct room, and Starfire knocked on the door, still holding his hand as though to make sure that he didn't run away, or to give support. At the moment, he wasn't sure which he wanted more.

"Come in!" chorused young voices from the other side of the door, in varying degrees of excitement.

The door opened. At least ten pairs of huge eyes stared up at them. Cyborg felt his breath catch in his chest. The eyes were wary and uncaring, and the voices weren't cute anymore; they were vicious and sharp as a knife. Their words, their words, they cut him to the quick, and he winced, wanting to shy away from the accusing faces, the ones that told him that he wasn't normal, wasn't natural and didn't belong with them. They were throwing things, ripping his papers, and laughing and laughing and laughing and he couldn't do anything about it, and he couldn't, he couldn't, he couldn't… !

But all of a sudden there was a slight warmth and Starfire was squeezing his hand and they were walking into the room. The eyes were younger again and the smiles were innocent and they weren't laughing at him. There was a clear admiration shining from the depths of them. Starfire said hello and exchanged a few words with the teacher, who turned to her students and smiled, saying something that Cyborg wasn't able to focus on. As soon as she finished, they surged up and pulled the two of them apart, sitting them down and getting out the paper and pencils and crayons and markers and starting to work.

Cyborg gingerly chose a piece of white paper and set it down in front of him, vaguely aware of the kids suggesting things for him to draw and talking to each other animatedly. He hated coloring. He hated it with a passion. Cyborg was a pretty easy-going guy. There weren't many things that he objected to very strongly, but coloring was definitely one of them. He had hated it ever since his accident. The young man's hands were completely made of metal now. They were large and chunky and they were a hindrance. He couldn't color anymore. It was difficult to hold a pencil or a crayon without breaking it, and even when he could, it was nearly impossible for him to color inside the lines. He should have explained to Starfire more clearly just why he really, really couldn't do this.

"Starfire," he hissed, leaning over to the tiny table next to him where she was sitting with the rest of the kids. One little girl with blonde hair in pigtails that were coming undone was determinedly coloring with a green marker on Starfire's forearm, completely ignoring the paper in front of her. A boy on the other side of Starfire who looked like he had a cold, for he needed to wipe his nose, had his tongue poking out of his mouth in concentration while he used a red marker on Starfire's hair. After he did, he turned to his friends near him with wide brown eyes and an amazed gaze.

"Her hair is the same color!" he exclaimed. The others gasped, and some put their hands to their mouths in shock. Starfire smiled, not at all bothered that the kids were coloring all over her. She was preoccupied with them, coloring her own pictures and responding when they spoke to her. She looked like she was having just as much fun as the children were, which wouldn't have surprised Cyborg in the least if it turned out to be true.

"Starfire!" he said more insistently, reaching over and rapping her on the head with his knuckles. She turned to face him expectantly, raising her eyebrows. "I can't color!" he whispered. The smile disappeared off of her face and she frowned slightly, partially out of confusion and partially out of upset. Starfire was going to protest, but Cyborg forestalled it. "My hands are too big. I can't color well. I can't do it."

There was a pause where Starfire's eyes met his firmly, searching his face. Finally she surprised him by giggling, a sound that he was definitely not expecting. "Cyborg," she whispered back to him, humor practically rolling off of her in sheets. "The children will not mind if you cannot color. We are here so that we may be with them. You should attempt to use the pencils of color, I think. You will not upset them if you are not the best they have ever seen." She shook her head, as though he was four years old and blind for not seeing something this obvious, and went back to what she had been doing.

Cyborg was frozen for a second. He slowly turned back to the blindingly white paper on the table in front of him, mocking him. With a concentrated effort he grabbed the closest thing to him, which happened to be a maroon crayon and tentatively drew a circle. The crayon didn't break. It wasn't the best circle ever, and there were some definite dents in it. He looked at it critically, but was interrupted by an inquiring voice.

"What're you drawing?" asked the long-haired boy sitting to his right who was leaning over to examine it more closely. The girl on the other side of him whacked his arm and shouted in a voice that was much louder than necessary that he was obviously drawing a person's head. Duh. But another girl across the table shook her head vehemently, braids flying in the air and corrected her, arguing that he must be drawing a lollipop. It erupted into a heated argument between anyone who could hear just what Cyborg was planning on making his circle into. There were ridiculous guesses being thrown back and forth such as a truck and the T-tower and Starfire's fingernails.

The machine man looked to Starfire, whose gaze was on him. He smiled in a hesitant, almost astonished way and she grinned back at him, nodding.

"Actually guys," he said, causing a hush over the children who looked up at him expectantly. "I'm drawing a sun."

There was a burst of laughter from around the table, and the kid from before with long hair shook his head, grabbing a black marker from the box in the middle of the tiny table and saying while he added to the picture, "You have to draw sunglasses and a smile for it to be a sun."

Cyborg grinned, happy to sit back and let them fix whatever they felt needed to be fixed. "Of course," he muttered contentedly, "How could I have forgotten the sunglasses?"

\--

When the two of them entered the main room later that day, the other three Titans were already there. Beast Boy and Robin were shouting, trying to knock each other out of the ring, alternately bragging and complaining depending on who had the upper hand. Raven was curled up on the other end of the couch from where they were sitting, reading some book or another and exercising her now well-honed ability to ignore all noises in the vicinity of her person. Cyborg and Starfire were chatting easily about the afternoon, and the three others looked up from a marked place in a book and a paused video game.

"Dude, nice tattoos, guys!" said Beast Boy, grinning at them. Neither was upset, both going straight for the refrigerator to have a lunch that they had had to skip while at the school. Beast Boy had been referring to the hearts, stars, faces, houses, clouds and animals that had been doodled all over the metal of Cyborg's torso and the golden skin of Starfire's arms. Both had agreed that since the marker would come off easily when washed, the kids could draw on them. Some had even signed their names.

"Thank you!" called Starfire from where her head was buried in the fridge. She emerged with a bottle of mustard and a bowl of her Tamaranian glorg. Fortunately, she didn't offer to share with anyone. The others thanked their lucky stars that she was in a selfish mood for once.

"Better you than me," muttered Raven, turning back to her book.

Robin grinned, agreeing with this sentiment, and asked of Cyborg, "So she finally got you, huh?"

"Yeah," agreed Cyborg. "She finally got me." He met Starfire's grateful and cheery green eyes and smiled at her. "I'd do it again, too."


End file.
